Abstract

Personality stability and change is mostly studied nomothetically, usually bymeans of questionnaires. Therefore, we focus on subjective description ofpersonal change. The research was done with the sample of 56 adults (22 menand 34 women aged from 36 to 40). We used the life-line technique to elicit alife-story telling – respondents were asked to draw a line representing theirlives and then were invited to tell a story about their lives. We asked thequestion about personal change explicitly. In most cases the referred changescan be labelled as normative, which are typical for adulthood (acquirement ofautonomy, deepened sense of responsibility, shift towards the more rationaland calm approach to life events, expected bodily changes). Non-normativepersonal changes are associated with unusual life course (eg. continued livingwith parents) or life events (eg. death of son).

Item Type:

Book Chapter

Additional Information:

Copyright for chapters remain with individual authors at all times and permission should be sought from the author for any reproduction other than for personal use.